{"id":7163,"date":"2011-01-21T23:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T22:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaza.haimbresheeth.com\/?p=7163"},"modified":"2011-01-23T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T12:07:07","slug":"january-21-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/2011\/01\/21\/january-21-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"January 21, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR<\/strong>: The western hypocrisy
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The whole world seems to know and care about ONE Israeli soldier caught by Hamas in Gaza few years ago. None of those humanists actually knows or cares at all about the many Palestinian political prisoners – more than 10,000 of them – who are languishing in Israeli jails for many years. One Israeli Jew is obviously more important than ten thousand Palestinians.<\/span><\/p>\n

Palestinian protesters block France FM from entering Gaza<\/a>: Haaretz<\/h3>\n

Demonstrators say infuriated over comments by Michele Alliot-Marie in support of Gilad Shalit; member of Alliot-Marie’s entourage hit in the head.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hamas security officer trying to clear the way for French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie's convoy to enter the Gaza Strip, January 21, 2011. Photo by: Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A crowd of furious Palestinian protesters have tried to block the French foreign minister on her way into the Gaza Strip, jumping on her vehicle and lying on the road.<\/p>\n

Dozens of protesters surrounded Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie’s convoy and tried to block her passage through the Erez Crossing from Israel on Friday. The protesters were relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

They were angry about comments made by Alliot-Marie on Thursday in support of Gilad Shalit, an the Israel Defense Forces soldier held by Hamas militants in Gaza since 2006.<\/p>\n

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said her comments reflected a total bias toward Israel.<\/p>\n

Hamas police eventually dispersed the protesters and allowed her through.<\/p>\n

A member of Alliot-Marie’s entourage was hit in the head and later examined at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.<\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon, Alliot-Marie visited the southern town of Sderot.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Alliot-Marie met Aviva and Noam Shalit, Gilad Shalit’s parents, in Jerusalem, where she said that Shalit had “been held hostage for over four years. His complete isolation and preventing any sign of life from him is completely inhumane. We demand his immediate release.”<\/p>\n

Shalit is a French citizen, and France “is using all its ties in the region to advance his release,” she said.<\/p>\n

France’s role in freeing Shalit is secondary because Israel and Hamas chose the German mediator to negotiate the soldier’s release following to his success in dealing with Hezbollah, she said.<\/p>\n

Due to the issue’s sensitivity, Alliot-Marie chose not to comment on the talks and the reports about a new deal being negotiated.<\/p>\n

Angry protests greet French foreign minister in Gaza<\/a>: The Guardian<\/h3>\n

Palestinians pelt Mich\u00e8le Alliot-Marie’s car with eggs and shoes after she meets family of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit<\/strong><\/p>\n

Protesters attempt to stop the French foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie’s car as she arrives in Gaza. Photograph: Sipa Press\/Rex Features
\nPalestinian protesters mobbed the car of the French foreign minister, Mich\u00e8le Alliot-Marie, as she arrived in Gaza today.<\/p>\n

Dozens of people attempted to block Alliot-Marie’s convoy and hurled eggs and shoes at her jeep. The protesters banged on the vehicle and yelled at the minister to leave Gaza, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

The protesters, relatives of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, were furious over comments attributed to the minister a day earlier when she met the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier being held captive by the Islamist group Hamas.<\/p>\n

After the meeting Israeli radio quoted Alliot-Marie as saying the continued detention of Gilad Shalit, seized by Palestinian fighters in 2006, was a “war crime”.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman in her entourage told Reuters: “The minister was misquoted by Israeli media over Shalit’s issue.” French reporters travelling with Alliot-Marie said the term “war crime” was actually used by Noam Shalit \u2013 Gilad Shalit’s father \u2013 and not by the minister.<\/p>\n

In her first visit to the region since being appointed foreign minister last year, Alliot-Marie was greeted with hostility by the dozens of demonstrators brandishing photographs of their imprisoned sons and husbands.<\/p>\n

Gazans said they were angry that Alliot-Marie had made no mention of the several thousand Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. “Get out of Gaza!” read one banner. “There is one Gilad Shalit but also 7,000 Palestinian prisoners,” said another.<\/p>\n

Germany has tried for months to broker a deal to secure Shalit’s release in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners but the sides are deadlocked over several high-profile inmates.<\/p>\n

It has been a torrid week for Alliot-Marie. On Monday the Guardian reported that she had outraged liberals and human rights activists by proposing last week to send French security forces to Tunis to shore up the unpopular regime. Three days later the Tunisian dictator fled to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday she was summoned to explain her remarks to the foreign affairs commission of the national assembly, the lower house of parliament, where she said her offer had been “misrepresented” and had been aimed at helping the Tunisian people, not propping up repression. She was “scandalised” that her comments had been distorted.<\/p>\n

Alliot-Marie made a short speech to reporters on Friday saying France remained committed to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “France cares for Gaza. France will not abandon Gaza,” she told Reuters. “I stress to you France’s determination to achieve a dual goal: establishing a Palestinian state and guaranteeing the security of Israel.”<\/p>\n

EDITOR<\/strong>: Ban Ki-moon discovers the settlements<\/span><\/p>\n

As one of Israel’s strongest backers, it is interesting that Ban Ki-moon has just now discovered that settlements are illegal...<\/span><\/span> he used all his powers for years to shield Israel from the implications of its many illegal acts.<\/span><\/p>\n

UN chief: Settlements are illegal, hamper peace efforts<\/a>: Haaretz<\/h3>\n

Palestinians have right to an independent state, Israel has right to live in peace within secure borders, and way must be found for Jerusalem to be capital of two states, Ban Ki-moon tells UN committee.<\/strong><\/p>\n

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon slammed Israel’s refusal to halt West Bank settlement building, saying that this refusal seriously hampered peace talks with the Palestinians, AFP reported on Friday.<\/p>\n

“Settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law, contravene the Road Map obligations of Israel, undermine confidence, prejudge the outcome of the permanent status negotiations and hamper efforts at bringing the parties back to the negotiating table,” he told a UN committee dealing with Palestinian issues on Friday.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Arab nations submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but a vote on it is not expected any time soon because of a likely U.S. veto.<\/p>\n

The secretary-general also called for a halt to “irresponsible rhetoric” that questions a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution and incites hatred and violence.<\/p>\n

Palestinians have the right to an independent state, Israel has a right to live in peace within secure borders, and a way must be found for Jerusalem to emerge as the capital of the two states, Ban said.<\/p>\n

Diplomats say that the point of the draft resolution condemning settlement building is to highlight Washington’s isolated position on the Security Council, show the Palestinian population that the Palestinian Authority is taking action, and to pressure Israel and the United States on the settlement issue.<\/p>\n

Council diplomats said privately that the 15-nation panel was unlikely to take any action on the draft resolution in the near future – if at all – because of the likely veto.<\/p>\n

It has nearly 120 co-sponsors, exclusively Arab and other non-aligned nations. UN diplomats said that the draft would probably receive 14 votes in favor and the one veto if put to an immediate vote.<\/p>\n

The draft says that “Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”<\/p>\n

Intensive U.S. diplomatic efforts to revive direct peace talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas collapsed last year after Israel failed to extend a 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction.<\/p>\n

Israel has repeatedly called for a resumption of direct negotiations with the Palestinians. But the Palestinians have refused to return to the negotiating table until Israel first agrees to halt settlement work.<\/p>\n

Obama must call Israeli settlements illegal<\/a>: The Guardian<\/h3>\n

US support for a UN resolution on the settlements would remind Netanyahu that there are consequences for breaking the law<\/strong><\/p>\n

“To veto or not to veto?” That is the agonising question that has President Barack Obama pacing the battlements of the White House waiting to dodge the slings and arrows of outraged Aipac. Provoked by the latest demolition in East Jerusalem, no fewer than 120 countries have sponsored a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity. Hillary Clinton has also condemned it as “illegitimate”, but the resolution introduces precision by terming the settlements as “illegal”.<\/p>\n

In a country where “all politics is local”, and in the face of the economic crisis, Obama could almost be forgiven for dropping the ball in the Middle East game. But his response to the current resolution could well determine whether there is any wind left in the sails of the peace flotilla he launched with his speeches in Egypt and Turkey directed at the Muslim world.<\/p>\n

Every other member of the UN security council agrees that settlements are illegal, including Britain and France. The international court of justice has affirmed their illegality. The US once called them illegal, then termed them unhelpful, and currently regards them as “unhelpful” and “illegitimate”. Under the road map of 2003, Israel agreed to stop them, but it has ignored the rest of the world and its best friend, the US, and continued to build. Even President Bill Clinton officially reduced the amount of US loan guarantees by the sum spent on settlements.<\/p>\n

In the face of Binyamin Netanyahu’s defiance, so far the US response, engineered by Dennis Ross \u2013 who seems to have frozen out the official peace negotiator, George Mitchell \u2013 has been to attempt to bribe Israel with billions of dollars, free jet fighters and a free “get out of the security council” card in the form of a veto. The handsome offer was for a temporary moratorium.<\/p>\n

Washington’s line is to ignore UN decisions and international law and say that it is up to the parties to negotiate such “permanent-status issues”. The state department itself is clearer on the issues. After years of congressional votes, it still balks at moving the US embassy to Jerusalem (which hosts not a single foreign embassy) because, regardless of eventual negotiations, Israel does not have internationally recognised title to the city.<\/p>\n

It is as if you have caught someone stealing your car and the police decide to overlook technical issues like the law and ownership and instead tell you to negotiate with the thief to get occasional access to the back seat.<\/p>\n

In this week’s security council debate on the resolution, deputy US ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo used theological nicety to explain Washington’s difficulty in supporting a resolution that, on the face of it, reflects US official policy. “We believe that continued settlement expansion is corrosive \u2013 not only to peace efforts and the two-state solution \u2013 but to Israel’s future itself. The fate of existing settlements is an issue that must be dealt with by the parties, along with the other permanent-status issues \u2013 but, like every US administration for decades, we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.”<\/p>\n

However, she added: “Permanent-status issues can be resolved only through negotiations between the parties \u2013 and not by recourse to the security council. We therefore consistently oppose attempts to take these issues to this council and will continue to do so.”<\/p>\n

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, is usually tactfully absent during such debates, keeping her credibility by allowing deputies to intone the weaselly formulas that disguise the stark truth. Annexation and settlement building are illegal.<\/p>\n

Of course, Obama has other problems, such as the economy and healthcare, and on the Middle East must face not only a rabidly pro-Israeli Republican party but also a majority of his own party that would sign up to a resolution declaring the moon to be made of blue cheese if the Israeli lobby demanded it.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, his credibility as president is at stake here. The Republicans do control the House of Representatives, and indeed the chair of the foreign affairs committee is now Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who outflanks the Israeli government on the right. (She has been trying to de-fund UNRWA, the UN’s agency that provides basic services in the occupied territories, even though the Israeli government, which would have to pay if the UN didn’t, opposes her.) But Congress cannot control the US delegation to the UN.<\/p>\n

It is surely time for Obama “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them”. This week, a letter landed on the White House doormat from a phalanx of foreign policy and government professionals urging him to support the resolution. He should take their advice.<\/p>\n

The public exasperation implied by support for the security council resolution sends a signal to Netanyahu that there are indeed consequences for ignoring the advice of your best friend, let alone breaking the law. It might make the Israeli prime minister more amenable, and it would certainly send a signal to the Israeli electorate that Netanyahu had terminally alienated the White House.<\/p>\n

It would not alienate the American electorate, not even American Jews. Those who support Netanyahu tend to be those who think the president is a foreign-born crypto-Muslim anyway. It would bring cheer to the J-Street movement, whose peacenik views more closely reflect those of most American Jews than Likud does.<\/p>\n

And it would do more than any other single act to demonstrate respect for international law and restore the credibility of American diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Obama could follow up and demand the IRS check on the tax deductibility of American “charities” and foundations that bankroll settlement building, including Irving Moskowitz, who recycles the proceeds of inner-city gambling in the US to buy and demolish property in East Jerusalem, such as the Shepherd Hotel, with the conscious aim of frustrating the declared policy of every US government since 1967. Some of the money, however, he sends as donations to politicians like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

EDITOR<\/strong>: No murderer will be charged by the IDF<\/span><\/p>\n

After a week of lies, the IDF discharges a soldier who murdered and old Palestinian man. We cannot, of course, ever expect such murderers to be charged, as killing a Palestinian is not a crime in Israel. <\/span><\/span>Apparently, Palestinians should be only killed ‘professionally’…
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Israeli army discharges soldier for shooting Palestinian civilian<\/a>: The Guyardian<\/h3>\n

Investigation into death of Hebron man says soldier acted ‘unprofessionally’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sobheye, the wife of Amr Qawasme, in the bedroom where her husband was killed by Israeli troops in Hebron. Photograph: Ammar Awad\/Reuters
\nThe Israeli military has discharged a soldier for acting “unprofessionally” in shooting dead an unarmed 65-year-old Palestinian man in Hebron earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Another soldier, who initiated the firing, was exonerated by investigators because a “suspicious movement caused [him] to feel his life was threatened”. The dead man was asleep in bed when soldiers entered the room, according to his family. He was shot multiple times in the head and upper body.<\/p>\n

The military said it deeply regretted the death of Amr Qawasme and acknowledged he was a civilian.<\/p>\n

On 7 January, a special squad from an elite unit mounted a raid in search of five Hamas militants who had been released from prison the previous day by Palestinian security services. The main target, Wael Bitar, lived in the apartment below Qawasme.<\/p>\n

The dead man’s son, Raja’e, told reporters on the day of the killing that the soldiers must have thought Bitar was in the apartment. “They thought it was Wael so they fired bullets immediately after entering my father’s room while he was sleeping in his bed. I guess they did not make sure of his identity,” he said.<\/p>\n

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said an investigation had concluded that “the initial firing at Qawasme was done following a suspicious movement that caused the soldier to feel his life was threatened.” The shooting was in accordance with the IDF’s rules of engagement, the inquiry found.<\/p>\n

The statement continued: “A second soldier who having watched the first soldier firing at Qawasme, began firing at him as well. While the second soldier did feel threatened, he acted unprofessionally. Therefore [Major General Avri Mizrahi, who conducted the investigation] has ordered that the soldier’s term be terminated.”<\/p>\n

According to the IDF, the soldiers were from the Duvdevan unit which it described as “a professional elite unit specialising in close combat, camouflage and assimilation into hostile territory”.<\/p>\n

The five Hamas militants were arrested following the shooting.<\/p>\n

Israeli media reported leaked information today that a separate investigation into the death of a woman in the West Bank village of Bil’in, following a protest during which teargas was fired, had concluded that she died as a result of mistakes in her medical treatment.<\/p>\n

The IDF denied it was the source of the leak, saying the report of its investigation into Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s death was not ready to be released.<\/p>\n

Anonymous IDF sources had earlier briefed extensively that the cause of Abu Rahmah’s death was a pre-existing condition, which they said was leukaemia or asthma.<\/p>\n

Abu Rahmah’s family and supporters insist she died as a result of teargas inhalation and have published medical records to support their assertion.<\/p>\n

Israel moves to turn deserted Palestinian village into luxury housing project<\/a>: Haaretz<\/h3>\n

Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to the village Lifta’s preservation have called the plan to build 212 luxury units and a small hotel the end for the last Arab village of its kind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yakub Odeh, 67, walks among the ruins of the Arab village of Lifta at the entrance to Jerusalem and is oblivious to the new neighborhoods and freeways that surround it. He doesn’t see the train tunnel being dug above it or the secret escape route for the country’s leaders being dug below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Lifta, Jerusalem: Last visible remnant of the Nakba<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Odeh doesn’t see the “Death to the Arabs” graffiti at the entrance to the village or the Arabic version of the name that someone blotted out on the sign there. He sees a village and an area as it existed until March 1948, before it was abandoned by its Palestinian residents.<\/p>\n

“Ali Badr’s family lives here, and here’s Salah Mohammed’s house,” he says on a walk through Lifta. The village for him is not limited to the houses left standing around the well-known village spring. For him, it is also the remnants of houses in the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem. the land on which new housing in Ramot was built. It is also the village school, which now serves as an ultra-Orthodox educational institution, at the entrance to Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

“My roots are here. My whole mentality is from here. I will never be able to forget,” he says.<\/p>\n

Now, the remains of the village are threatened by changes to the special character of the
\nplace. Two weeks ago, the Israel Land Administration published a public tender for
\nconstruction in Lifta, which is to transform an abandoned Palestinian village on the edge of Jerusalem and a popular location for hiking into a luxury residential neighborhood. The developers have committed to preserve the houses and meticulously restore them. Plans call for the houses to become restaurants and galleries.<\/p>\n

Odeh calls the redevelopment plan a second Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” and the word the Palestinians use to speak of the events surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.<\/p>\n

Architect Gabriel Kertesz, who designed the new development in Lifta, together with Shmuel Groag and Shlomo Aronson, said the redevelopment is the best thing that could happen to Lifta.<\/p>\n

“There is one approach that nothing should be done, which means the disappearance of the village. Our approach is one involving preservation and revival. The plan requires the most meticulous preservation rules and permits construction only after the historic buildings are preserved and everything is done under the supervision of the Antiquities Authority and a conservation architect,” he said.<\/p>\n

Odeh is now involved in human rights work, but he is a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who served a lengthy prison term. He was eight when his family fled Lifta. His former house overlooks the spring in the center of the village.<\/p>\n

Lifta is an anomaly. Among the hundreds of Palestinian villages abandoned in 1948, it is the only one that was neither destroyed nor reinhabited. The villages of Ein Karem and Ein Hod, for example, remained standing but were inhabited by Jews.<\/p>\n

Odeh and others see the remaining 55 homes in Lifta and the surrounding terraces as a kind of memorial to Palestinian society before Israel’s War of Independence. After the village was abandoned, the ceilings in the buildings were deliberately destroyed to deter intruders, however the homeless and others on the margins of society took up residence there.<\/p>\n

One of the buildings houses a successful program for young drug addicts, which has been operating there for 20 years. The program’s director said yesterday that he doesn’t know what will become of the program once the redevelopment of the village begins.<\/p>\n

In open areas around the existing homes in the village, plans call for 212 luxury housing
\nunits and a small hotel. Israelis and Palestinians dedicated to Lifta’s preservation have
\ncalled the plan the end for the last Arab village of its kind.<\/p>\n

Odeh said: “Our dream is that there be peace, and that we be able to return to our village.<\/p>\n

There is enough room in Palestine for everyone. These are our homes. We were born here. We breathed the air here, and we are entitled to return here.”<\/p>\n

Not all of the opponents of the proposed development share Odeh’s aspiration that he and descendents of other villagers return to live in Lifta. Architect Gadi Iron envisions Lifta as a world heritage site that should be preserved. He called it a “Garden of Eden” of streams and fruit trees and beautiful landscapes and a site containing important Palestinian architecture.<\/p>\n

Iron said: “Lifta is more important than the Taj Mahal, from the standpoint of its beauty and for its Mediterranean heritage. The Taj Mahal is kitsch. In Lifta, there’s no kitsch.” He
\nproposed the village be preserved as an architectural museum.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Cook: Zionist left writes its own obituary<\/a>: IOA<\/h3>\n

By Jonathan Cook, www.jkcook.net \u2013 18 Jan 2011
\nBarak and Netanyahu kill off Israel\u2019s Labor party<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ehud Barak, Israel\u2019s defence minister, appears to have driven the final nail in the coffin of the Zionist left with his decision to split from the Labor party and create a new \u201ccentrist, Zionist\u201d faction in the Israeli parliament. So far four MPs, out of a total of 12, have announced they are following him.<\/p>\n

Moments after Barak\u2019s press conference on Monday, the Israeli media suggested that the true architect of the Labor party\u2019s split was the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who, according to one of his aides, had planned it like \u201can elite general staff [military] operation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has pressing reasons for wanting Barak to stay in the most rightwing government in Israel\u2019s history. He has provided useful diplomatic cover as Netanyahu has stymied progress in a US-sponsored peace process.<\/p>\n

Barak had been happy to oblige as the government\u2019s fig-leaf, so long as he was allowed to hold on to his post overseeing the occupation of the Palestinians. But as Labor became little more than a one-man show, it was racked with revolts, its MPs and handful of cabinet ministers regularly threatening to pull out of the coalition.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, however, has a larger purpose in seeking to draft the Labor party\u2019s obituary \u2014 one related to the cementing of a domestic consensus behind the right\u2019s vision of a Greater Israel. The prime minister is hoping to unpick the last strands of the Israel created by the founders of Labor Zionism.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s impact on Zionism was truly formative. During the 1948 war, the party\u2019s leaders established Israel as a socialist state \u2014 even if it was of a strange variety that worried almost exclusively about the welfare of its Jewish majority and carefully engineered systematic discrimination against the fifth of the citizenry who were Palestinian.<\/p>\n

For the next three decades Labor ran Israel virtually as a one-party state, centrally directing the economy and its major industries through the party\u2019s affiliated trade union federation known as the Histadrut.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s political power rested on its economic power. Most of Israel\u2019s middle and working classes relied for their employment on state corporations, the security industries, the civil service and government firms \u2014 and that ensured votes for Labor.<\/p>\n

But as Israel\u2019s economy began to wane, so did Labor\u2019s electoral fortunes. The rightwing Likud party \u2014 home to Netanyahu \u2014 won power for the first time in 1977, championing both the settlements and economic privatisation. These moves further weakened Labor.<\/p>\n

The party recovered only in the early 1990s, under former general Yitzhak Rabin, who reinvented it as a \u201cpeace party\u201d. Rabin adopted the Oslo accords that, it was widely assumed, would eventually lead to Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n

The Oslo process had its own economic, as well as political, logic. The Labor party, which had lost its chief rationale following economic privatisation, now promised that regional peace would open up lucrative new global markets, especially in China and India. The ultra-nationalism of Likud was presented as a barrier to trade and growth.<\/p>\n

But peace failed to materialise, and the settlements\u2019 continuing expansion steadily eroded the Palestinians\u2019 belief in Israel\u2019s good faith. Labor\u2019s last shot at peace-making was the Camp David summit of 2000. When Barak, as prime minister, failed to reach a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, claiming there was \u201cno partner\u201d, he killed off Israel\u2019s fickle peace camp and made his party politically irrelevant again.<\/p>\n

In the following years, Barak continued to undermine Labor. In joining Netanyahu\u2019s government, he visibly abandoned Labor\u2019s two official missions: to protect the poor and defend the peace process.<\/p>\n

With Netanyahu\u2019s help, he now appears to have finished off Labor for good. His centrist party known as Atzmaut or Independence \u2014 working inside the government \u2014 will replicate the platform of Israel\u2019s large opposition party, Kadima.<\/p>\n

Atzmaut\u2019s ideology, Barak has already made clear, will depart from Labor\u2019s. At his press conference he denounced his former colleagues as representing \u201cthe left and post-Zionism\u201d.<\/p>\n

Avishai Braverman, a dovish and disgruntled Labor minister until Barak\u2019s split, responded bitterly that the new party would be \u201cLikud A at best and Lieberman B at worst\u201d \u2014 a reference to Avigdor Lieberman, the ultra-nationalist foreign minister.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s breakup highlights both the continuing shift rightwards in Israel and Barak\u2019s obssessive placing of his personal ambitions above all else. The defence ministry has become his personal fiefdom.<\/p>\n

What will now become of the Zionist left in Israel? The few remaining Labor MPs will probably either knock on Kadima\u2019s door, a natural home for a growing number of them, or unite with the tiny other left party, Meretz. Together, the surviving left will struggle to match the paltry number of Arab MPs. At the next election, the Zionist left may all but disappear from the parliamentary stage.<\/p>\n

Its demise, however, should not be lamented. It has been in terminal decline for decades.<\/p>\n

What its disappearance may do is free up the political landscape for a real left to emerge in Israel, one less tied to the onerous legacy of Labor Zionism and prepared to collaborate creatively with the Palestinian national movements. That is an outcome not considered in Netanyahu\u2019s scheming.<\/p>\n

Labor\u2019s failure offers a potent lesson for this new left. The old party\u2019s success was dependent on offering the Israeli public not just a political vision but an economic one too. Israelis will not welcome the compromises needed for peace unless they believe there are material incentives to make such sacrifices worthwhile.<\/p>\n

The new left already understands the power of the stick of international sanctions looming over Israel. But it must also offer a carrot to the Israeli public: a vision in which an Israel at peace with its neighbours will bring about a better quality of life.<\/p>\n

That will be the first, formidable task facing the post-Barak left.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are \u201cIsrael and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East\u201d (Pluto Press) and \u201cDisappearing Palestine: Israel\u2019s Experiments in Human Despair\u201d (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.<\/p>\n

Gaza Doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish Two Years After Israeli Attack that Killed 3 Daughters & Niece: “As Long as I am Breathing, They are with Me. I Will Never Forget”<\/a>: Democracy Now<\/h3>\n

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was a well-known Palestinian gynecologist who spent years working in one of Israeli\u2019s main hospitals. On January 16, 2009, two days before the end of Israel\u2019s brutal 22-day assault on Gaza, his home was shelled twice by Israeli tanks. His three daughters and his niece were killed. He has just written a book about his life called I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor\u2019s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity. He joins us in our studio for an extended conversation. [includes rush transcript]<\/p>\n

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, Palestinian gynecologist. His three daughters and his niece were killed on January 16th, 2009, when his home in Gaza was shelled by Israeli tanks. He is author of I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor\u2019s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.” By Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish (Bloomsbury Publis
\nAMY GOODMAN: Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the end of Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza. Dubbed “Operation Cast Lead,” up to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day assault between December 28th, 2008 and January 18th, 2009. More than half the Palestinians killed were civilians, over 300 of them children.<\/p>\n

Today we spend the rest of the hour remembering the story of just one Palestinian family behind those numbers. It\u2019s one of the better known tragedies of the attack, in part because it unfolded live on Israeli television.<\/p>\n

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a well-known Palestinian gynecologist who has spent years working in one of Israeli\u2019s main hospitals. He crossed into Israel daily through the Erez checkpoint from his home in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.<\/p>\n

During the assault, Dr. Abuelaish was interviewed regularly on Israeli television and radio. Not even Israeli journalists were able to report independently from within Gaza, making Dr. Abuelaish one of the few Hebrew-speaking witnesses who told of the Palestinian suffering under fire.<\/p>\n

On January 16, 2009, a day and a half before the official end of the war, Dr. Abuelaish\u2019s home was shelled twice by Israeli tanks. His three daughters were killed\u201421-year-old Bessan, 15-year-old Mayar, and 13-year-old Aya\u2014as well as his niece Noor. Another daughter, Shatha, and his brother were also badly injured.<\/p>\n

Moments after Dr. Abuelaish discovered the bodies of his children, he called his friend Shlomi Eldar, a correspondent at Israel\u2019s Channel 10 News, for help. Eldar happened to be in the studio at the time. Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat narrates the exchange that was broadcast live on Israeli television.<\/p>\n

ANJALI KAMAT: On January 16th, when Dr. Abuelaish called Shlomi Eldar of Israel\u2019s Channel 10 TV News, Israeli tank shells had just struck his home. They killed his family, he says. \u201cI think I\u2019m a bit overwhelmed, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explains that Dr. Abuelaish is a physician at Tel Hashomer Hospital. He always feared his family would be hurt. His daughters were injured. \u201cI want to save them, but they died on the spot, Shlomi. They were hit in the head.\u201d<\/p>\n

A visibly emotional Eldar explains that the doctor had unsuccessfully tried to get out for many days and was afraid to even raise a white flag. \u201cA shell hit his home,\u201d Eldar says. \u201cAnd I have to tell you, I do not know how to hang up this phone. I will not hang up this phone call.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anchor calls on the Israeli Defense Forces to allow ambulances to get to the doctor\u2019s family. Shlomi Eldar then excused himself from the show, took off his earpiece and rushed off the set to get help to Dr. Abuelaish.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: That was the live broadcast of Israel\u2019s Channel 10 News on January 16, 2009. No ambulances ever reached Dr. Abuelaish\u2019s home, which was surrounded by Israeli tanks. He and the surviving members of his family walked a quarter of a mile carrying the dead and wounded through the streets. They eventually found an ambulance to take them to the closest hospital. Standing outside, a grieving Dr. Abuelaish kissed the forehead and hands of his children as they were strapped into stretchers. He addressed a news camera at the scene in Hebrew.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: [translated] What happened? Everybody in Israel knows. They know that I was talking on television and on the radio, that we were at home, that there are innocent people, 25 people, here. Suddenly, today, when there was a hope for a ceasefire, in the last day that I was talking with my children, suddenly they bombed us. That\u2019s how you treat a doctor who takes care of Israeli patients? Is this what\u2019s done? Is this peace?<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli TV correspondent Shlomi Eldar arranged for the evacuation of Dr. Abuelaish and his only surviving daughter, 16-year-old Shatha, who was badly wounded. The next day, Dr. Abuelaish spoke at a news conference at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Angry Israelis present at the hospital heckled him while he spoke.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: I want them to know that I am from Jabalia camp. I am Palestinian. And we can live together. And no difference between Palestinian and Israelis. Within the borders of the hospital, all are equal. Why not to be outside equal? Why not? My children\u2014my children were involved in peace. In peace, they participated in many peace camps everywhere. They were weaponed when they killed them. They were weaponed not by arms; they were weaponed by love.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish speaking two years ago. Of his six daughters, three were killed. One was critically injured, lost her eye. His tragic story has come to symbolize Palestinian suffering during Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza. His story made headlines around the world, and he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Abuelaish has just published a book. It\u2019s called I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor\u2019s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity.<\/p>\n

He flew into New York for an interview in our studio from Toronto, Canada, where he has been practicing and teaching. I began by playing for him the tape of the day his voice was broadcast on the Israeli airwaves, and I asked him to remember that day for us.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: It is two years later. As you listen to this, it brings us all back. It\u2019s painful to even play it for you. Tell us about this day two years ago.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: It\u2019s living with me. It\u2019s not two years. It\u2019s every moment. I see it every day. I feel it. I see my daughters speaking with me every day, to talk to me. They are part of me. And that\u2019s what can I say, as long as I am living. As long as I am breathing, they are with me. I will never forget\u2014the opposite. All of the time, I feel, I am determined, those girls, as other girls of the world, that I believe in their potential\u2014they are asking me, “Do more. Bring us justice, and keep our holy souls holy, and fight with wisdom and good words.”<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Abuelaish, tell us what happened that day, on January 16th.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: January 16th, we were expecting the ceasefire, day before or after. And a human life doesn\u2019t need negotiation. It\u2019s an urgency when it comes to human life. To save, we need to act immediate. And I was supposed to be interviewed live by Oshrat Kotler about women\u2019s health and the situation in Gaza. And we were planning our future. Where can I be with my children? As I was fed up, and it\u2019s time to be with my children, not to travel. I want to see them every day. And that\u2019s the message, what I want to tell everyone. Don\u2019t say “tomorrow.” If you can do it today, do it today. Spend as much as you can of your time with your beloved ones. You don\u2019t know if tomorrow is coming or not. We were planning to go to Toronto. And then, after I left their room, the first shell came.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: What time was it?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Four-thirty p.m. It\u2019s the same time of the time when their mother passed away, afternoon. Just four months\u2019 period, exactly.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: She had died of leukemia?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Of leukemia. I didn\u2019t imagine it. I thought the shelling from the surrounding, because we were surrounded by shelling everywhere. I didn\u2019t think that it\u2019s my house. But when I saw the smoke, the dusk, the chaos within the house, I went inside the room. Where is Bessan? To see them, I can\u2019t recognize Bessan, Mayar, Aya, Noor. Just to see Shatha in front of me with her eye on her cheek and her fingers. Mayar, I want to see her. Where is her head? Bessan, decapitated, blood, parts. I started to think of saving Shatha, not to see her blind.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Shatha was how old?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: She was 17. She was in her high school. And at that moment, I decided either to save her eye, or I am ready to accept her to be with her sisters, but not to be disabled. That\u2019s why I called my friend Shlomi. And it was God\u2019s bless that he was at the studio with Oshrat Kotler, and it was broadcasted live to show the craziness of humanity in the 21st century.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a clip of when my colleague, Anjali Kamat, and Jacquie Soohen came to Gaza, and you gave them a tour of your house. This is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: We are standing in the scene of the tragedy, in the place where four lovely girls were sitting, building their dreams and their hopes, and in seconds, these dreams were killed. These flowers were dead. Three of my daughters and one niece were killed in one second on the 16th of January at a quarter to five p.m. Just a few seconds, I left them, and they stayed in the room\u2014two daughters here, one daughter here, one daughter here, and my niece with them.<\/p>\n

The first shell came from the tank space, which is there, came to shell two daughters who were sitting here on their chairs. And when I heard this shell, I came inside the room to find, to look. I can\u2019t recognize my daughters. Their heads were cut off their bodies. They were separated from their bodies, and I can\u2019t recognize whose body is this. They were drowning in a pool of blood. This is the pool of blood. Even look here. This is their brain. These are parts of their brain. Aya was lying on the ground. Shatha was injured, and her eye is coming out. Her fingers were torn, just attached by a tag of skin. I felt disloved, out of space, screaming, \u201cWhat can I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

They were not satisfied by the first shell and to leave my eldest daughter. But the second shell soon came to kill Aya, to injure my niece, who came down from the third floor, and to kill my eldest daughter Bessan, who was in the kitchen and came at that moment, screaming and jumping, \u201cDad! Dad! Aya is injured!\u201d<\/p>\n

The second shell, it penetrated the wall between this room to enter the other room. Look. This is the room with the weapons, where this room was fully equipped with weapons. These are the weapons which were in this room. These are the weapons. These are the weapons: the books and their clothes. These were the science handouts. There, you see, these are her handouts for the courses that she studies, which is stained with her blood. It\u2019s mixed with her blood. These are the books. These are the weapons that I equipped my daughters with: with education, with knowledge, with dreams, with hopes, with loves.<\/p>\n

I am a gynecologist who practiced most of my time in Israel. I was trained in Israel. And I devoted my life and my work for the benefit of humanity and well-being, to serve patients, not as someone else that you are delivering or helping choose. I am dealing with patients and human beings. We treat patients equally, with respect, with dignity, with privacy. Politicians and leaders should learn from doctors these values and these norms and to adopt them.<\/p>\n

This invasion, from the beginning, I said it\u2019s useless. It\u2019s futile. No one is winning. The innocent civilians, the Gazans, civilians, paid the price of this invasion, no one else.<\/p>\n

Military ways proved its failure. We should look for other ways to give each other its rights. We don\u2019t want to speak about peace. Peace is\u2014you know, this word lost its meaning. We should find something else: respect, equality, justice and partnership. That\u2019s what we should look for.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: You have been watching Izzeldin Abuelaish or listening to Dr. Abuelaish, the Palestinian doctor who lost three daughters and a niece on January 16th, 2009: Bessam, 21; Mayar, 15; Aya, 14; Noor was 17, his niece. On this day, two years later, describe what was the Israeli government\u2019s response to your children\u2019s killing. You are well known throughout Israel, a Palestinian doctor who works in Israel. You were updating people on the siege almost every day on television.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: You know, it took one month to admit their responsibility and to say, “We shelled the house.”<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: As opposed to…?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: As opposed to be done immediate, to recognize that and to admit, to take responsibility from the first moment, because they shelled it. It\u2019s not after one month. It\u2019s the first day.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Right. What did they say had happened?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: They tried to justify. We don\u2019t need to justify. It\u2019s better\u2014we are human being, and it\u2019s a human to err. But a mistake is a mistake if we didn\u2019t learn from it, not to repeat those mistakes. They started to justify, to say there were snipers, the first day. The second scenario, there were militants. The third day, there were firing. And the fourth scenario, that they took shrapnels from my niece\u2019s wound, and it was coming from Qassam rockets. Why? Please.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: That\u2019s what they said.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Yes.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: But it wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Of course. Of course. And it took one month to investigate it. Doesn\u2019t need investigation for one month. It has been shelled, 16th, and it\u2019s known who shelled it. Please. “We made a mistake. We did it. And we are ready for responsibility.” This is the easiest way, to have the moral courage to admit responsibility. It will help all to move forward, not to deny.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about your daughters. Bessam, 21?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Bessam, I see her in front of me now, with her smile, with her potential, with her love, with her humanity. She was supposed to get her BA a few months later. She was the mother, the sister, the friend, the good person to everyone after I lost my wife. She\u2019s the one who encouraged me to go and to resume my work. She took responsibility. Bessam, the wise person\u2014she doesn\u2019t speak much; she listens. But when she speaks, she says wisdoms. She said, “I learned the academic exams are nothing. It\u2019s the life exams we face in life.” She said, “Everything starts small, then becomes big. Everything starts in one place, then goes in different directions.” When I sent her to Creativity for Peace camp in New Mexico\u2014<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: In Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: In Santa Fe. She said, “There, I realized how similar are we.” Can we learn from our children?<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: You mean there, Israeli and Palestinian girls.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Christian, Druze. They learned that they are similar. And that\u2019s what we need to learn from our children, and to work for them.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And tell me about Mayar, who was 15.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Mayar, the smartest, the brightest girl. After once when I visited the school, she was number one in math in the Gaza Strip. If they have a math problem in their class, the students look at each other. They can\u2019t\u2014they say, “If Mayar was here, she is the one who is for it.” She was open-minded. She was the chairman of the students\u2019 parliament, to represent them, to defend those girls. Aya was 14, who had planned to be a journalist, to be the voice of the voiceless, to think of others, to defend others, and to work for them. They were fighters for humanity, for peace. They were connected with others to feel the suffering of other children. And that\u2019s what we need.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And Noor, your niece?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Noor, she was 17, 17 years old. She came for her fate. She was at the camp with her mother. But she said she can\u2019t tolerate the life there\u2014in a public space, 50, 60 people in one room, with shortage of everything. It\u2019s intimidation, humiliation. She said, “I want to go there to be with my dad.” So she came and stayed with us. Just two days before, she came.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, your book, Dr. Abuelaish, is called I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor\u2019s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity. You have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Your response has been remarkable. The response of Israelis to what happened to you? I mean, your cries for help were heard around the world in that conversation on Israel Channel 10\u2014not conversation, your wailing for your family.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Those daughters, when I want to bring them justice, I must be healthy. And hate, as every one of us knows, it\u2019s a poison. We don\u2019t want to be injected with it. If you want to achieve a noble goal and cause, you must be healthy mentally, spiritually and physically, to defend your goals.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish\u2019s three daughters and niece were killed in his home in Gaza when it was shelled by Israeli tanks on January 16, 2009, during the 22-day Israeli assault on Gaza. We\u2019ll come back to our conversation with the Palestinian gynecologist in a minute.<\/p>\n

[break]<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my interview with the Palestinian doctor, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: You have sued the Israeli government. Your statute of limitations is out on January 16th, so you have just sued. What are you demanding?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Because they didn\u2019t leave any alternative for me within two years. I was using and used every possible peaceful way, with Israeli ministers, Knesset members. Please, we need the truth and, to bring those daughters justice, apology, responsibility and the consequences of that. That\u2019s what we want. It will be a new opportunity, a window of opportunity, for both nations, for the leadership to speak about the truth and to have the moral courage to move forward, not to deny. We need to take responsibility. So I asked for that, and I told, human life can\u2019t be valued by money, and it\u2019s time to give, not to take. Any compensation that comes, it will go for a foundation that I established, Daughters for Life, for health and education, for girls and women in the Middle East, including Israel. It\u2019s time for women to take the lead and to practice their full potential and their role. That\u2019s what I am determined. I want to see the plans of my daughters fulfilled by other girls.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: More than 1,400 Palestinians died in the Israeli siege of Gaza. Talk about what happened during that time.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: During that time, it was a crazy moment. Three weeks, no one knows about what happened. And the world was closing the eyes about what is happening in Gaza. Even for me in Gaza, we don\u2019t know what is happening outside my house. Just with a radio, I used to listen. And Gazans became numbers. Human beings are not numbers. They have faces. They have names. They have hopes. They have dreams. Can we get from there to consider a human being as a human being, not numbers? And that\u2019s what we need. Tell what happened, 16th of January, to open the eyes of the Israeli public, the international community, the Palestinians, that we are killing innocent civilians.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: How does it feel for you to come into the United States, Dr. Abuelaish, at this time? Then, it was the Israeli assault on Gaza. Your children were killed by a military that is armed and financed by the United States.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: It\u2019s time to face each other and to speak. And it\u2019s important to transmit the message. The Americans, the American Jews, Arabs, Muslims everywhere, we need to communicate and to speak. Words are stronger than bullets. And without communicating, without acting and meeting together, who\u2019s going to solve? And I learned one thing: our enemy is our ignorance. We don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t know. And to know, we need to communicate and to explain face to face.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: The story of your life is remarkable, and you tell it very graphically in your book I Shall Not Hate. If you could just share with us where you were born, tell us in a nutshell, which I think is very much the story of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: I was born, raised and lived as a Palestinian refugee in the Jabalia refugee camp, deprived of what is called a childhood. I never tasted the childhood as millions in this world, which is man-made suffering. And this is the hope. It\u2019s man-made. So we, as a human being, we can challenge those man-made challenges and not to accept it and to change it. I succeeded.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Your father came from…?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: From a village called Houg, where Sharon\u2019s farm is established. It\u2019s close to Sderot.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: So, your land, your father, what he has a deed for, is actually known today as the Sharon farm, Ariel Sharon\u2019s farm?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: The prime minister.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: The Abuelaish land. And in a sudden, to be a refugee, own nothing. But our parents, especially the Palestinian mother\u2014she is the hero. From nothing, they pushed, encouraged the children. We lost everything, but we didn\u2019t lose hope in the Palestinian children to be focused and to be educated.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: You say your family left Houg in 1948\u2014<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Yes.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN:\u2014your father afraid there would be an attack.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: They were exiled to leave, and they were forced to leave. And they were thinking it may take just a few days, and they will go back\u2014these days, months, years, and now six decades. And even in the place where are we now, we are not safe, or we are not free.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: So, you grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp completely destitute.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Yes.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Your only escape ultimately was your education, what your parents pushed you to do. And you became a doctor.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: The Jabalia refugee camp, it\u2019s the place which is close to my heart. I feel the good and the bad times in the Jabalia refugee camp. It\u2019s the memory, it\u2019s the roots, but encouraged me of not accepting this life, this suffering, and that we can change it. I succeeded. From nothing. From nothing. And that\u2019s the message I want others\u2014please, stand up, have hope, have faith, and act.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: How many of you lived in one room?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: We were\u2014I remember, in the early days, the room, three by three meters, to have six, seven\u2014one by one to be covered. In winter, we are attached together. That\u2019s the life in the camp. We have no life. But we were determined, just breathing.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Describe what it\u2019s like to go through a checkpoint. I mean, for you as an adult, as a recognized doctor, renowned through Israel as a gynecologist working in Israeli hospitals, describe what it was like for you to go through checkpoints. And where were these checkpoints?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: These checkpoints, someone, when he sees it from far, he doesn\u2019t imagine it, especially when I leave from Gaza to Israel, to pass through how many checkpoints. It\u2019s intimidation.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: How many?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Just from the first gate to the last gate, it\u2019s about 20 gates you pass through.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty checkpoints.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Twenty gates. From one to the other, within one checkpoint, this is what is called Erez, a checkpoint. And you need to pass through that, electronized, with computerized cameras. You don\u2019t see just doors open, and someone is telling by voice to cross or not. It took me\u2014sometimes, if you are lucky, it may take one hour, two hours. And sometimes \u2019til the permits and the coordination is ready, it may take me, from Gaza to Tel Aviv, which is 45 minutes, it may take between two hours to four or five hours.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And you\u2019d even have the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint asking you for medical advice about birth control and other issues.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: They know me.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: They knew you, and you\u2014still it could take hours.<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: And they know me, and I know them. I understand the security needs, but can we make human life easy, too? Not to intimidate, not to humiliate. That\u2019s what we need. A checkpoint security, I understand it. But it is not in that way, not in that way. When I came from Jordan to my wife, who was gasping\u2014she was dying. I went to see her before she dies.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: She died of leukemia?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: She died of leukemia. Took me more than 14 hours from Allenby Bridge to Sheba Medical Center.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And how far is it?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: It\u2019s one-hour drive. And to move from one checkpoint to the other, we need to put ourselves in the shoe of the other. What are we doing? And why are we doing that? And is it the right way? Or can we change course?<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Abuelaish, newly released classified U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal that Israeli officials openly told U.S. diplomats the aim of the blockade of Gaza was to keep Gaza\u2019s economy on the brink of collapse. According to a November 2008 cable, Israel wanted Gaza\u2019s economy to be, quote, “functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.” Can you describe the conditions?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Gaza is collapsing. There is no life in Gaza. And that\u2019s\u2014Gaza is stigmatized by everything you like for yourself, but for Gazans, say no\u2014no life, no hope, no work, no employment. And some people\u2014it\u2019s shame to say, we open the borders for food. Human life is not dependent on food. They are hungry for food, for employment, for freedom, for education, to taste their life and to feel that they are free in their life. That\u2019s what we need. What do you think of a person living in a palace, and you provide him with the best types of foods. He doesn\u2019t need the food. He needs the freedom. The most holy thing in the universe is a human being under freedom, freedom of poverty and occupation.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: So, what do you think has to happen right now?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: What to happen, that\u2014to admit the rights of the Palestinians and to take active steps, and that there will never be a just and good peace just for one. Must be good and just for all, for Palestinians and Israelis. And I think it\u2019s time for the Israeli government and the Israeli people to stand up. We need to translate the resolutions into actions. There is a Palestinian nation and an Israeli nation, and they have to live sharing the land with respect, and that the dignity of the Palestinians equals the dignity of the Israelis. And the freedom of the Palestinians is linked to the freedom of the Israelis from their fears. The security of the Israelis and safety is linked to the safety and the security of the Palestinians, not dependent on the security and suffering of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: And here in the United States you are. Your message to the American people?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: We need them to mediate and to take action, to say\u2014<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Your assessment of President Obama?<\/p>\n

DR. IZZELDIN ABUELAISH: Yes, and that\u2019s what do we need. If we care about each other, even about your friends, if they are making mistakes, tell them, “This is not good for your interest.” We need to open their eyes. We may be hard and harsh with our beloved ones, from good will. And that\u2019s what I think. We need to open the eyes of the Israeli public, and even if the Palestinian leadership is not committed to say to them, “This is not for your interest.” But also, the road map is the humanity between us, not the territory. You can\u2019t have everything and the other side have nothing. Peace has a price, to be by choice or from the heart. You can, by military ways, succeed for short term; you can force others to accept. But it is not sustainable, and we must look and to find the ways that are sustainable and to protect the future of our children and to put our children as a priority.<\/p>\n

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. Three of his daughters and his niece were killed on January 16, 2009, when his home in Gaza was shelled by Israeli tanks. He has just written a book about his life; it\u2019s called I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor\u2019s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity. He is currently teaching and practicing in Toronto, Canada, with his surviving children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR: The western hypocrisy The whole world seems to know and care about ONE Israeli soldier caught by Hamas in Gaza few years ago. None of those humanists actually knows or cares at all about the many Palestinian political prisoners – more than 10,000 of them – who are languishing in Israeli jails for many … Continue reading January 21, 2011<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[116,120,91,74,87,123,72,92,88,56,95,119,94,101,62,93,96,73],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7163"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7166,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7163\/revisions\/7166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}